In re Trejo

Petitioner was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. The offense was committed in 1979, when petitioner was 17 years old. In 1982, at age 20, he pled guilty to assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer and possession of a deadly weapon by a prisoner and was sentenced to four years, to be served consecutively to his life sentence. In 2015, after serving 35 years in prison, petitioner was found suitable for parole as a youthful offender under Penal Code 3051, effective in November 2015. Petitioner claimed that his release date was recalculated as November 2, 2017, based on a correction in his credit earning status. In June 2016, petitioner filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the legality of his continuing incarceration. The trial court denied relief, concluding that section 3051 does not exempt a youthful offender granted parole from serving a consecutive sentence for an offense committed in prison, citing section 1170.1(c), which provides that a consecutive sentence for an in-prison offense “shall commence from the time the person would otherwise have been released.” The court of appeal granted relief; section 1170.1(c), does not apply to petitioner’s case because his in-prison offense was committed before he was 23 years old, so he was entitled to release at the end of his indeterminate sentence pursuant to section 3051(d). View "In re Trejo" on Justia Law